Custom and Myth eBook

INTRODUCTION.

Though some of the essays in this volume have appeared
in various serials, the majority of them were written
expressly for their present purpose, and they are
now arranged in a designed order. During some
years of study of Greek, Indian, and savage mythologies,
I have become more and more impressed with a sense
of the inadequacy of the prevalent method of comparative
mythology. That method is based on the belief
that myths are the result of a disease of language,
as the pearl is the result of a disease of the oyster.
It is argued that men at some period, or periods,
spoke in a singular style of coloured and concrete
language, and that their children retained the phrases
of this language after losing hold of the original
meaning. The consequence was the growth of myths
about supposed persons, whose names had originally
been mere ‘appellations.’ In conformity
with this hypothesis the method of comparative mythology
examines the proper names which occur in myths.
The notion is that these names contain a key to the
meaning of the story, and that, in fact, of the story
the names are the germs and the oldest surviving part.

The objections to this method are so numerous that
it is difficult to state them briefly. The attempt,
however, must be made. To desert the path opened
by the most eminent scholars is in itself presumptuous;
the least that an innovator can do is to give his
reasons for advancing in a novel direction.
If this were a question of scholarship merely, it would
be simply foolhardy to differ from men like Max Muller,
Adalbert Kuhn, Breal, and many others. But a
revolutionary mythologist is encouraged by finding
that these scholars usually differ from each other.
Examples will be found chiefly in the essays styled
‘The Myth of Cronus,’ ’A Far-travelled
Tale,’ and ‘Cupid and Psyche.’
Why, then, do distinguished scholars and mythologists
reach such different goals? Clearly because
their method is so precarious. They all analyse
the names in myths; but, where one scholar decides
that the name is originally Sanskrit, another holds
that it is purely Greek, and a third, perhaps, is all
for an Accadian etymology, or a Semitic derivation.
Again, even when scholars agree as to the original
root from which a name springs, they differ as much
as ever as to the meaning of the name in its present
place. The inference is, that the analysis of
names, on which the whole edifice of philological
‘comparative mythology’ rests, is a foundation
of shifting sand. The method is called ‘orthodox,’
but, among those who practise it, there is none of
the beautiful unanimity of orthodoxy.